Sooner or Later (40 page)

“I didn’t know about Charlotte Parrish’s death,” he told Dan. “But I’ve no doubt he did it.”

“How was he related to the Parrishes?”

“Hold on a minute. All this happened more than twenty years ago, I have to bring myself up-to-date.” Morrow shuffled through the papers in front of him. “Ah, now I have it. Buck is the son of Rory Duveen by a previous marriage. Later, Rory married Charlotte Parrish’s daughter, Romany.”

Dan’s shocked eyes met Piatowsky’s. “So Buck is Ellie’s half brother.”

“Right,” Morrow said. “I have the full story here. Apparently, he’d gone to Journey’s End to try to claim his father’s inheritance, but his father didn’t have any money. That belonged to Romany, and she had spent it.
There was nothing left, and anyhow, if there had been, their daughter, Ellie, would have inherited it.

“He went crazy and tried to kill her, but the child, Ellie, was in the room. It was her screams that brought the servants running. Ms. Parrish refused to press charges against him. Buck had the same father and the same name as her granddaughter, and she refused to taint Ellie publicly. Instead, she had him committed. Clinically, the man is a psychopath. He is violent and deranged, and absolutely capable of the crimes you’ve described.”

“Then why the hell did you let him out of there?” Dan couldn’t hide the anger in his voice.

Morrow sighed regretfully. “Believe me, I wish I hadn’t. But this is a private facility; when the money wasn’t paid, I had no choice. I also had no evidence that he’d committed any crime. The state facilities were not willing to take him, they’re overcrowded as it is, and funding has been cut….”

“He tell through the net.”

Morrow nodded. “Exactly. But I do have a recent photograph of him, plus I can tell you he is a big man. Six three, weighs around two-twenty, has a muscular build, a pale complexion and copper-red wavy hair. He has dark eyes that look almost black, and he’s very strong.”

Dan put down the phone and looked at Farrell. “There’s your motive,” Farrell said, twirling the ballpoint, and looking somber.

Irritated, Piatowsky averted his eyes from the twirling pen. If Farrell didn’t put the fuckin’ thing away, he might do something drastic to him.

“With Miss Lottie and Ellie out of the way,” Piatowsky tried to phrase it delicately, “Buck might legitimately
claim the estate, as the last of the Parrishes and Duveens. After all, he was,
is
, Ellie’s half brother.”

No one said it, but they all knew Buck would need Ellie dead in order to claim the estate. Without a body, the case could hang fire in the probate courts for years.

“So why didn’t he just kill her, there at the cafe? Or at the car park?” Piatowsky was pacing the floor. “If he needs a body, why has she disappeared?”

Dan thought of Ellie’s photograph, stolen from her dead grandmother’s room. “Because he’s in love,” he said quietly. “He’s obsessed with her. He must have watched her, stalked her, known her every move. Buck Duveen has
all
the motives. Gain, revenge, passion, obsession. All we can hope is that he hasn’t killed her. Yet.”

E
LLIE
’
S
P
LACE WAS CLOSED, NOT BECAUSE CHAN HAD
quit, but because with Ellie missing, none of them had the heart to go on.

Farrell had summoned the staff one more time, and they were sitting around the table with cups of unwanted coffee in front of them, passing the color copy of Buck Duveen’s photo around, racking their brains to remember if they had seen him.

Chan, Terry and the kid knew nothing; they rarely saw the customers, and Jake swore he would have remembered. “I always notice the faces,” he added.

Maya studied the photograph intently, wishing with all her heart she could say, yes I know him. But she didn’t. “There was a guy came in once or twice, kind of hanging around Ellie. But he didn’t look like this.”

Dan’s ears pricked up. “What
did
he look like?”

Maya frowned, she wanted to get it right. “He was very tall, good-looking, I suppose, in a strange sort of way. I mean he had this pale skin … and dark hair with a mustache. He always wore dark glasses, kind of
cool steel frames. I didn’t like him, and I told Ellie I thought he was a creep.”

“She knew him?”

“Oh yes, she said she’d met him at the Biltmore. She laughed, said he was just lonely, that’s all. But I thought there was something odd about him, he was cocky for a lonely guy, swaggering about the place …”

Dan shoved the picture in front of her nose. “Put a mustache on this face, Maya. Put on the dark glasses, the dark hair. Tell me, are we close?”

Maya stared again at the photo. Then she nodded. “His name is Ed Jensen.”

Dan threw his head back, his eyes closed.
The young Lothario.
“That’s our man,” he said in a steely voice. “I’d bet my Ufe on it.”

The manager at the very proper Biltmore was not used to having police detectives question him, but when he heard it was about Lottie Parrish, and Ellie, he softened. A few minutes later, Farrell had the Miami address and telephone number. “He always paid the hotel in cash,” he said, dialing the Miami number. “No credit card.”

Maya nodded, dabbing her eyes with a Kleenex. “He did the same here at the cafe, paid cash. And left a big tip.” She shuddered. “He had the coldest eyes.” Thinking of Ellie in his clutches, she began to sob again.

Terry poured more coffee. “Come on, hon, drink up,” he whispered encouragingly. “Remember, it’s not over until the fat lady sings.”

The people in Miami were giving Farrell a hard time, refusing to part with any information.

“How do I know who you are?” the young woman on the other end of the line asked.

Red-faced, he retorted, “You will in just a few moments,
ma’am, when uniformed officers arrive in a squad car. Maybe then you’ll give them the information.”

Slamming down the phone, he grabbed a jelly doughnut from the box of Winchell’s he’d bought, then paced the room, munching angrily. “Okay, you guys,” he said with his mouth full. “Thanks for your help. You can all go home.” He looked sympathetically at Maya. “Thanks, honey,” he added. He was a good guy at heart.

“I should have thought of him earlier,” Maya realized, panicked. “I should have known.”

Dan shrugged. “I saw him, too, and I didn’t make the connection. He was respectable, well-dressed, pleasant.”

“A good actor,” Jake said.

“A sociopath,” Piatowsky corrected.

They picked up their belongings and filed silently out the door. Dan took Maya’s arm. “I’ll call you, soon as I know anything.”

She gazed bleakly at him. Her beauty had disappeared and she looked like a tear-stained child. She nodded her thanks. “I’ll be home, waiting.”

Piatowsky hated taking a backseat and letting Farrell do the work, but this was the other guy’s turf. He and Dan sipped yet another styrofoam cup of police brew, hanging around until Miami got back to them.

The information came up on the computer screen: The Jensen Property Development Company did not exist; the business address was just a service, and the check received in payment was Ed Jensen’s. His bank was the Santa Monica branch of First National.

Minutes later, after a hurried consultation with the FBI, they had the information from the bank that the funds in Ed Jensen’s account had been transferred by the Madison Avenue branch of the Bank of America, from the account of Buck Duveen. They also had Jensen’s
social security number. Farrell checked. It was a fake.

He sat back in his chair, twiddling the ballpoint. “Now all we have to do, is find him,” he said, smiling.

“Y
OU
’
VE GOTTA EAT, GOTTA GET SOME SLEEP.
” P
IATOWSKY
was sitting opposite Dan in the hotel bar. They were drinking Glenfiddich and the basketball game was roaring from the TV screen. Dan’s stubble was becoming a beard and his hair looked as though it had been raked through once too often. “At least, take a shower.” He sighed. “Buy yourself a clean shirt.”

Dan ran his hands through his hair one more time, slumping wearily back in his chair. “I can’t stand not doing anything. All I can think of is her. I hear her voice in my head. I close my eyes and see her, smiling at me…. God!” He stared bleakly in front of him.

The Lakers game was over and the news came on. Buck Duveen’s face was on the TV screen.
“Suspect in the case of missing heiress, Ellie Parrish Duveen,”
the newsreader said, his voice weighty with seriousness.

How Ellie would have hated it, Dan thought, grieving silently inside as though she were already dead. Then he reminded himself of Terry’s words to Maya:
It’s not over
until the fat lady sings.
No one was singing yet. There was still hope, there had to be.

“You’re wrecked.” Piatowsky finished his drink, stood, then hitched up his pants. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“To get a burger, and figure out our next move.”

It all sounded positive, except Piatowsky had no idea what their next move was going to be.

Dan chewed the burger without tasting it, staring blankly down at his plate. He drank the Coke, then glanced at Piatowsky, watching him. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. So? Where d’ya think he’d take her?”

Dan frowned. “There has to be some special place, somewhere that meant something to him …”

The cell phone rang, and he answered quickly. It was Farrell.

“Just wanted to fill you in. We traced Duveen’s mother. She was murdered when he was still in college. Strangled. There was a cross carved in her head. He inherited everything she had, and it was a fair bit. After the sale of the house, around a hundred thousand. He was never a suspect and the case is still open.”

B
UCK WOKE FROM A DEEP, DRUNKEN SLEEP.
H
IS HEAD
felt stuffed with lead and the sound of the TV grated like a steel file across his raw nerves. Slowly, the newscaster’s voice penetrated the fog in his brain.

“This is the face of the man suspected of abducting the heiress Ellie Parrish Duveen. He is six feet two inches tall, pale-complexioned, with red hair, possibly dyed darker. He has dark brown eyes and may also have a mustache. You are looking at a photo of the way he usually looks, when not disguised. And this is an artist’s concept of the way he looked when last seen.”

Buck jolted upright. He stared at the tiny screen, saw his own face, looking at him.

“The suspect’s name is Patrick Buckland Duveen, oka Ed Jensen, and he is also being sought in connection with the death of Charlotte Parrish, the missing woman’s grandmother, and her housekeeper, Maria Novales. As well as the strangulation and mutilation deaths of three prostitutes. This man was recently released from a high security mental facility and is known to be a violently deranged
criminal. The police wish it to be known that he is armed and dangerous, and they ask the public not to approach him. If you have seen this man, or know where he is, they ask you to call the following number, right away.”

Leaping to his feet, Buck pounded his fist furiously against the wall.
He’d thought he’d beaten them all. He thought he’d won and the prize would be his.

He flung on his clothes and made for the door. The pain clamped down suddenly in his chest and he leaned against the wall, gasping. Blood pounded in his ears and his chest was bursting. Pulling himself together, he stumbled from the room, into the car, and drove back up the mountain.

Ellie was so tired, but she couldn’t let herself fall asleep because she was afraid she would never wake up. Never see the blue sky again; never feel the warmth of the sun, taste good wine, kiss Dan Cassidy …

“Onward Christian so-o-o-ol-diers, Marching as to war, With the cross of Jesus …”

Buck stood in the open doorway.
She was singing, her voice low, husky, cracked. It was their father’s favorite hymn, the one they had played at the funeral, when they buried him.
Well, now they could sing it at
her
funeral.

Grasping the hammer, he strode across the room.

Ellie stopped singing and lifted her eyes. She could hear the wood splintering as he hacked the nails out.

“Oh, Daddy,” she
whispered,
“I know you love me. If you can hear me, please help me now. Please, Daddy, help me …”

The lid was wrenched back and light streamed in, blinding her. She could hear him, panting; then he dragged her from the crate. Her cramped muscles refused to unlock and she fell to her knees. She couldn’t
move, couldn’t see. She was helpless, waiting for the blow that would finish her off.

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures …
Her brain flickered in and out of reality.
She was a child again, safely tucked up in bed; she had just said her prayers and Miss Lottie was reading the beautiful psalm to her….

Buck stared at her kneeling on the floor. At her long tangle of red hair, at her once graceful body, and her bloodied limbs where the rope had cut into her. His golden girl: dirty, wounded, beaten. The moment was perfect.

Dropping to his knees, he pushed her down, straddled her, pressed himself urgently onto her. His strong ringers fastened around her throat, squeezing. Panting with excitement, he waited for her to scream, to excite his passion by begging, fighting him off as he took her. Just the way she had screamed in his dreams of revenge, all those long years locked away in Hudson.

Ellie waited to die. She only hoped it would be before he raped her. Her thoughts drifted between the Christian soldiers and the Twenty-third Psalm, between God, and her rather, and her grandmother. And Dan, who symbolized life and love …

Buck’s hands were trembling.
She was not frightened enough, not screaming, not begging for her life. It was no good, he couldn’t get hard….

The acrid smell of his stale sweat was in Ellie’s nostrils as he picked her up and carried her across the room. Then they were outdoors and she was dragging cool fresh air into her lungs. He flung her onto the cold leather seat in the back of the convertible. She wondered why he hadn’t killed her yet.